I'm a big fan of serving steak on a weeknight. I know, I know: steak can be expensive. It can also be intimidating to cook, and it can be bad for the environment. That's all true. Nonetheless, there are many reasons that a steak dinner can be perfect for the occasional Tuesday night.

First of all, because steak is so flavorful, you don't need a large serving size of it to be satisfied, so you can buy it in small, more affordable portions. And when you buy grass-fed beef from sustainable, whole-animal butchers, you can feel good about consuming it. Plus steak is protein-dense and—most importantly—it's delicious.

Save the fancy steak cuts like ribeye and T-bone for special occasions when you want to spend more money and time on the meal. But for weeknight dinners, these are my four favorite ways to get steak into the game.

1. Embrace The Strip Steak

A friend recently asked me to recommend a good steak cut to cook on a weeknight, and I knew that what she was looking for was a steak that feels like a Real Steak Dinner but doesn't break the time or money bank. Boneless New York strip steak is the answer I gave. It's my favorite quick-cooking steak that still feels substantial and meaty. It doesn't need more than a hit of salt and pepper and a hard sear in a hot pan to make it excellent. It's easy to cook, and one steak is enough for two people—and can even sometimes feed up to four when served with plenty of vegetables. Six to eight ounces per serving of meat is the standard rule, but for steak I find that four to six ounces is usually more than enough. Most of the recipes we publish on Epi follow the standard serving size, so feel free to scale back, or cook it all and save some to slice cold into salads or sandwiches. (I have a deep love for cold leftover steak.)

2. Let a Simple Marinade Do The Work For You

If you want to grill your steak, flank or skirt are the way to go for a weeknight dinner. The more open, fibrous structure of the muscle in these thin cuts is prime for marinating: the meat will soak in the flavor well and will benefit from the tenderizing effect of some time spent in acid. For a spicy-zesty grilled steak that you can slice into tacos or salad or simply enjoy as is, purée some chipotles in adobo with lime juice, pour it over a flank or a skirt steak and let it sit overnight, and dinner will be ready to cook when you get home from work the next day. Or choose your own marinade adventure—you don't need a recipe to marinate steak, just follow these simple guidelines.

3. Pound it for Faster Cooking

If you don't have time to marinate a flank steak, you can tenderize it and make it cook even faster by pounding it a bit thinner before grilling it. Once pounded, a flank steak will grill in a total of four minutes. Top it with a fresh veggie salsa and dinner is served. This technique doesn't translate to a skirt steak quite as well since that cut's already quite thin, but you could apply it to the faux hanger cut with great results.

4. Cook a Bunch of Veggies in the Same Skillet While Your Meat Rests

The hardest part about cooking steak for a weeknight dinner is waiting for the meat to rest before slicing into it. (It needs to sit for at least five minutes to redistribute the juices.) While you wait, use the hot skillet you cooked the steak in to sauté some quick-cooking vegetables like asparagus, snap peas, green beans, or broccolini. And don't bother cleaning the skillet first—all that nice charred meat flavor in the skillet will help season your greens.